The Twits - Mrs Twit Lesson

plan

Overview

Learning objective
the character of Mrs Twit.
• To understand the creation of

Learning outcome
ividuals’ own characters -
• To create a poem exploring ind
oming like Mrs Twit.
and to identify ways to avoid bec

Book reference
• Chapter 4: Mrs Twit

Cross-curricular link
• PSCHE, Literacy.

Resources
piece of a tape and felt tip
• Per child: a piece of paper, a
sentation of the poem.
pen; craft materials to make a pre

Starter
• Discuss as a class: What is a compliment?
• Individuals can give examples of compliments.
• Give every child a piece of paper. Working in pairs, they must stick the piece of paper to their backs using
a piece of tape.
• All the children walk around the room with their felt tip pen. They must write a compliment on every one
else’s back.
• All the children can then sit back down and look at their pieces of paper and all the compliments written there.
• Ask individuals how they feel reading all the nice compliments about themselves.

The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre

www.roalddahl.com/museum
Registered charity number 1085853 | Company limited by guarantee number 4178505 Illustrations © Quentin Blake
 The Twits - Mrs Twit cont.

Main teaching activity

• Read this extract from the story:

“
If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when
that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face
gets uglier and uglier until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it.
A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have
a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out
teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like
sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

• Discuss as a class: • The children discuss in pairs things that produce

nice, happy thoughts; for example, ice-cream,
- Do you think Roald Dahl is right?
football, friends. Write down the list.
- How do you think your face might look when you
• The children share their ideas with the class.
feel sad or happy?
- Why should we always have good thoughts?

The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre

www.roalddahl.com/museum
Registered charity number 1085853 | Company limited by guarantee number 4178505 Illustrations © Quentin Blake
 The Twits - Mrs Twit cont.

Group or independent activity

• The students make their list into a poem called an Anti-Twit Good Thoughts Poem.
• The Anti-Twit Good Thoughts Poem should include 10 things that produce happy thoughts.
• Each line should be at 10 words long, to encourage the use of adjectives and poetic devices such as
alliteration or figurative language.

My Anti-Twit Good Thoughts Poem

The purr of my tabby-cat while she’s drowsy on my knee
A smiley yellow sticker from my teacher in my exercise book
The laughter of joyful bubbles in lemonade
........................................
These are my Anti-Twit Good Thoughts!

Plenary
• Individuals read out their poems to the group.
• Peers can comment upon the effectiveness of certain words and phrases.

Other activities
• Create a self-portrait, drawing sunbeams around the face. In each sunbeam, write a good thought.
• Make a class anthology of your Anti-Twit Good Thoughts Poem.
• Prepare a presentation of your poem, using expression, sound effects or visual images.

The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre

www.roalddahl.com/museum
Registered charity number 1085853 | Company limited by guarantee number 4178505 Illustrations © Quentin Blake